Precise measurement of Γ(H⟶γγ)\Gamma (H \longrightarrow \gamma \gamma) at a PLC and theoretical consequences

With the LEP II Higgs search approaching exclusion limits on low values of $\tan \beta \sim 2$ it becomes increasingly important to investigate physical quantities sensitive to large masses of a pseudoscalar Higgs mass. This regime is difficult and over a large range of $\tan \beta$ impossible to cover at the LHC proton proton collider. In this paper we focus on the achievable statistical precision of the Higgs decay into two photons at a future $\gamma \gamma$ collider (PLC) in the MSSM mass range below 130 GeV. The MSSM and SM predictions for $\Gamma (H \longrightarrow \gamma \gamma)$ can differ by up to 10 % even in the decoupling limit of large $m_A$. We summarize recent progress in both the theoretical understanding of the background process $\gamma \gamma \longrightarrow q \bar{q}$, $q=\{b,c\}$, and in the expected detector performance allow for a high accuracy of the lightest MSSM or SM Higgs boson decay into a $b \bar{b}$ pair. We find that for optimized but still realistic detector and accelerator assumptions, statistically a 1.4% accuracy is feasible after about four years of collecting data for a Higgs boson mass which excludes $\tan \beta <2$.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, contributed to LP99 at Stanford, C